Pages

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Growing up, I was always
fascinated with New Year’s Eve parties.The idea always seemed magical to me.This party was signaling the end of the year.When the bells tolled and the ball dropped,
we would no longer be in the year we were in.We’d be moving forward, irreversibly forward.

When New Year’s Eve would come,
my parents would invite lots of their friends over.I was always ushered off to bed somewhat
early to make sure I was out of their way and because I was much too young to
stay up until midnight.

The endless stream of guests would
have been enough to keep me awake anyway, but the constant headlights pulling
into my driveway simply added insult to injury.It was like searchlights at those big Hollywood premieres saying “Party
Over Here!” and my bedroom door was like that deep voice in the old Charlie
Brown cartoons booming “Noooo Kids Allooooowed.”

I remember sneaking out of my
room one time and wandering through my house like an explorer.I navigated the adults’ legs like a forest.There was music and laughter and drinks of
various colors—most smelling horribly.I
wanted to join in on the fun so bad.They looked like they were having a blast.I envied them.They were, to me, the equivalent of those
blissful, partying gods on Olympus.

(They’re
so beautiful.Like…gods.)

Eventually, the parties
stopped.Then my parents got a divorce,
but my image of New Year’s Eve parties never faded.I was ecstatic the first time I was able to
stay up until midnight.I had a fairly
good time with my family just sitting around watching TV.However, it wasn’t THE good time I’d
imagined.So, I made it my goal to try
to recreate that party and capture the experience I’d been denied as a child.

Most of my attempts at the
perfect New Year’s Eve party were unsuccessful. The only person that could come
over was my cousin, and we differed on…everything.

A New Year’s party of just my
cousin, my brother, and I may not be huge, but that didn’t stop me from trying
to mimic the parties of my dreams. We had refreshments. We had that sparkling grape juice that comes
in the champagne looking bottles.We had
music.But it wasn’t the same.Where were all of the people?Where was the excitement?They were fun for a while, but eventually we
outgrew our tiny parties. Eventually, three
was simply not a party.

When I went to my dad’s one year
for New Year’s, things were even worse.For Christmas, my brother had been given a Karaoke Machine and several
Karaoke CD’s.I was given a light-up
disco ball.

However, when New Year’s came
around, I saw my chance to really get things going.My step-brother could be there, he could
invite some of his friends.My dad, my
brother, my grandma, my dad’s wife.This
could be a real shindig.Until it wasn’t…I rolled in that New Year on the couch with
my dad, the disco ball’s light overshadowed by the soft glow of the TV as Dick
Clark rolled in another New Year.The
music of the evening was the late-night chirping of crickets and my brother’s
snoring from the other room.

The only decent New Year’s party
I have ever been to was the one I met my wife at.I was locked inside a theater with a hundred
people I either knew from high school, or that I knew that were still in high
school.I sang karaoke, I ate popcorn, I
rapped Fergilicious.I had a blast.

In the end, I’ve learned that
it’s not about the size of the parties, but the people you are with that makes
the holiday special.With that said, I
would still kill for this:

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

For those of you that don’t know, I grew
up in a small town.Small towns have a
much different dynamic than larger cities.In larger cities, there’s a feeling of anonymity which can be both
depressing and comforting.On the one
hand, there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people that don’t
know you and don’t care about you.On
the other hand, you can go to Wal-Mart at two in the afternoon wearing the
flowery pajama pants your mom got you for Christmas with no worries that these
people will ever see you again.

In small towns, EVERYONE knows
you.The moment you step out the door
the likelihood that you will run into someone that will recognize you increases
exponentially with the amount of time you’re outside.Quick runs to the grocery store become a pipe
dream.You feel like a celebrity, except
without the good looks, money, or success.

Whenever you get into the store, it’s
like a military operation.You have the
sections of the store mapped out.

The moment you begin to make your trek
forward, you see someone coming.You
hear them cry out from the distance.Most of the time, in this situation, you don’t actually know the person,
they’re just a friend of the family’s, but that doesn’t mean they won’t share
the horrifying details of their hernia surgery with you.You glance around to see if there’s anything
you can dive behind to make them lose your scent, but you’re completely
isolated in the open.And they’ve
spotted you—caught your scent like a shark smells blood in the water.

What proceeds is a horrifying
conversation in which you try to get away.You try oh, so hard to get away.But the conversation won’t end.They discuss their newest child’s latest exploits, which include—shock
and surprise!—pooping, peeing, vomiting, and crying.Despite your best hints, they are completely
oblivious to your desperate need to get out, and probably think you wear
Spongebob Christmas Pajama Pants every day.Perhaps it’s your formal attire?

Regardless, eventually, you make an
excuse to get away—maybe your mom is expecting you to get home with toilet
paper, a dire need everyone can identify with.You think you’ve made your escape until you realize that they’re going
the same direction as you.

Suddenly, brilliance strikes.

You race outside, pretend to get your
wallet, but you’ve just opened yourself up to bump into more people.You see them, like an army, swarming on the
Wal-Mart.Every person you have ever
known has decided they desperately need something from the Wal-Mart at 3 in the
morning.You make a frantic sprint to
the store and begin throwing things in the buggy (shopping cart for you
non-southerners) as fast as you can.

Then, you run into someone else.

You make a frantic attempt to hurry
the conversation without seeming rude, but they continue to stay and stay and
stay, no matter how many times you try to tell them that your house is on fire
because you left the stove on and your brother can’t get out because he ate
poisoned mushrooms that have paralyzed him from the neck down.They don’t care.They want to show you baby pictures and
ramble on and on about how their hernia surgery went.

Finally, you manage to get away after
some quick, mumbled excuse.But things
don’t end that easily.

Frantic, you grab the one item you
desperately need and make a sobbing sprint for the front of the store.You have to get away. You have to escape the
horrifyingly awkward conversations, the embarrassing clothes, and prying,
judging eyes of small town life.You see
the faint glow of the numbered check-out lanes, and you think back to how the
wise men must have felt when they saw the star resting over Jesus’ manger.You feel like you’ve reached the Promised
Land.

It’s then you realize that you will never
get out of this place.It was actually a
trick and Satan has set you up to repeat the same awkward conversations over
and over in some sort of hell-ish perversion of the Groundhog Day curse.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

If
you really want to watch Legion and I
can’t convince you to just read this review and enjoy my funny pictures
instead, then feel free to skip on this.
However, I promise you that my review is more entertaining, and that’s not
some narcissistic belief. That’s just
how bad the movie is.

As you can
tell by the title of this post, a while back I watched the film Legion.
You may remember the trailers. Basically,
it’s about a rogue Angel defending the humans from other angels because God,
for some reason, decided to go bananas and kill every human on the planet. How much more awesome can you get? There was also some mention of a baby and
something, but who cares? A freakin’ WAR
between freakin’ ANGELS! It’s like those
Prophecy movies, only good, although,
sadly lacking Christopher Walken.

As I said, Legion is about a rogue angel—the
Archangel Michael—hopping down to Earth to defend humankind from being wiped
out by His Grumpy Omnipotence Himself.

(Let’s
hear it for dated television references, eh?)

That is the
simplest way to describe the plot. Obviously,
it’s a bit more complicated than that, but we’ll get to that in a moment. First I want to set the stage.

Legion begins with a snarky anecdote from a,
at this point, nameless, faceless female character. She talks about how her mom used to love
God. Then, Dad abandons the family, and
Mom’s opinion of God sours like milk two months past the expiration date.

The next logical
step in movie narrative would be to see how this has affected the innocent
young girl. What kind of woman will she
become having such a disenchanting exposure to religion so early in life? We don’t know. Instead, we are introduced to a leather clad
Paul Bettany appearing out of nowhere in a scene similar to the Terminator,
only without so much man-butt. I guess
his man-butt obligations were fulfilled in A
Knight’s Tale?

Michael spreads
his wings, and then, via silhouette, with the quick flash of a knife, his wings
are gone. After this impromptu surgery,
the angel sneaks into a conveniently located toy store, that is also,
apparently, a front for a conveniently located arms smuggling business.

I’m not
exaggerating when I say the angel finds an arsenal located in the back of the
store that looks like it could have come from The Matrix “we’re gonna need some guns” scene.

After this,
we are taken to a rundown trailer where a stereotypically white-trash couple lives,
complete with southern accents, and a pregnant girl. The girl, we presume (and we’d be right in
our presumption) is the girl from the beginning of the movie with the depressing
voice over.

We are soon
introduced to a whole slew of charmingly cliché characters: 1) the atheist, simple,
everyman diner owner, 2) the disabled, African American, Christian,
former-soldier-turned-cook, 3) the snooty rich couple—comprising of a nagging,
pretentious wife and a seemingly drunken, disinterested father, 4) their rebellious,
troubled teenage daughter, and 5) that lovable pop-singer turned actor Tyrese
Gibson playing an African American delinquent father with a troubled past and a
large gat for which to cap people with (I wish I was making that last one up). What do we get from this rich sampling from
all walks of the American way of life?
Rich family stuck in the middle of nowhere due to car trouble? Check.
Undereducated diner owner who beats his appliances to make them
work? Check. Whipped boyfriend who dotes on his adulterous
girlfriend, who is carrying the product of the affair? Check.
Pregnant lady that smokes? Check.

(You
can hear the baby’s lungs rattling from here.)

It’s like
the writers forgot to buy a new jar of Insta-Character and are making due by
scraping out the last little bit at the bottom.

After all of
the main characters have arrived, save the angel (who will be making a grand
appearance soon), the TV and the only working phone goes out while the
delinquent father is talking to his baby mama (I really, really wish I was
making that up).

Honestly, this
shouldn’t be that big of a deal. The
diner seems to have somehow survived from its creation in 1942 until present
day without any renovations. Basically,
you look like you could get tetanus from sitting in the chairs. However, the fact that the one channel they
can pick up goes out throws the entire restaurant into a tizzy. It’s so pressing that even the rich family has
to drag their oxygen deprived noses down from the upper atmosphere to make sure
everything is okay.

Enter Granny
Sugars (not actual name). Granny Sugars
has driven her pink crapper all the way to the diner for some raw steak and a
chat with the expectant mother. Of
course, since the movie handles the situation with all of the subtlety of
hitting the audience in the face with a brick, we know she will soon turn into
some sort of squishy, crawly, screamy, or otherwise unpleasant monster.

Granny
Sugars causes quite the kerfuffle. She
grows fangs, squeals, crawls around on the ceiling, and advances on the wannabe
father of the baby, saying menacing things and swearing more than a sweet old
lady should. Despite the fact that
Granny Sugars just did her best impression of what Spiderman and the chick from
The Exorcist would have if they
hooked up, the dude just can’t bring himself to shoot a little old lady. Even one that looks like this…

(Scientists
mutated Richard and Gene Simmons together, and the world was not prepared.)

…so the
delinquent African-American father takes care of it. He, of course, has never fired a weapon before that.
Riiight. I’ve seen Transformers,
Tyrese! You ain’t foolin’ me!

In the
brou-ha-ha, Granny Sugars rips Daddy Money Bags’ artery out if his neck WITH
HER TEETH. Daddy Money Bags is fading
fast, so several people hop in the jeep, but come back quickly when they are
confronted by a swarm of flies.
Apparently it’s getting Old Testament out there, and it’s about to get
worse. That’s when the angel, Michael,
arrives in a stolen police cruiser. The
poor people from the diner have had a hard day.
The last stranger they welcomed with open arms tried to make them a main
course, so they have a right to be suspicious of Michael. Besides, he’s driving a frickin’ stolen
police cruiser! Despite this, he has no
patience for this whole “trust” thing.
He just disarms Dennis Quaid, threatens him at gunpoint, and forces him
inside, but not before arming them to the teeth with semi-automatic weapons AND
A BAZOOKA.

It takes a
long time for Michael to explain just what the frak is going on, and then it’s
not until the diner patrons have basically been following him around like lost
puppies for fifteen minutes.

Basically,
God is mad at the humans and wants to wipe them out. Michael came to Earth to protect the pregnant
woman’s unborn baby because it will eventually become the savior of the human
race. So…from that description…the
woman’s baby is the second coming of Jesus…which God wants to stop? A really neat idea that utterly fails,
partially because no one explains how exactly the kid is supposed to save the
human race in the first place. He’s like
an in-utero John Connor, but John Connor had more back story before he was even
CONCEIVED than this kid.

(You
are NOT JOHN CONNOR!!!!!!)

Over the
next 30 minutes things fall apart. Daddy
Money Bags is dragged out of the diner, the diners must face down an army of
invading angel-possessed zombies (yeah, you read that correctly), and Michael
has still provided basically no answers.
We are treated, however, to a touching scene in which Michael explains
that the wannabe father (known as “Jeep” in the movie, but will hereby be
referred to as “Country Bumpkin” or “CB” for short) is the reason that Michael
deserted God in the first place.
Apparently, CB is kind and innocent, and loves his girlfriend even
though she cheated on him and decided to keep the affair baby with the
expectation that CB will help her raise it.
Apparently CB is the “true” protector of the child, whatever that
means. Yeah, Michael is a strong,
supernaturally powerful angel that has descended from Heaven to take care of
this kid, but that’s not nearly as important as this weak, fragile human…why is
CB the true protector again?

(He
smells like corn chips, stale beer, and failure.)

Eventually,
if you haven’t beaten yourself into near unconsciousness with a brick to make
sure this movie can never hurt you again, you might be wondering who the main
character is. And for good reason. After all, is it Michael, the angel that
defected from God to help protect the condemned human race? Or is it Country Bumpkin, the weak human who
has been charged with the task of protecting the savior of the human race? Or is it the mother of the as-yet-unborn
savior? Or is it salty diner owner? Perhaps the disabled war veteran? The delinquent African American father with
the shady, mysterious past who is just trying to get home to his baby? We don’t know!

Michael refuses
to talk about getting out of the diner and making a run for it. It’s too dangerous to the baby. They have to wait for the baby to be born
first. The baby MUST SURVIVE. It doesn’t take long for the mother to go
into labor—maybe 3 days. Immediately
(and I mean…maybe five minutes) after the baby is born and the mother should be
recovering from, you know, GIVING LIFE, Michael decides the baby and mother are
perfectly fine to venture out into the angel-possessed zombie masses that have
surrounded them (yes, once again…you read that correctly).

(Oh,
yeah. It looks safe enough.)

The
rebellious teenage daughter takes the baby for a little bit, and decides to
show her crazy, unstable mother, who has only gotten worse since her husband
died. When everyone gathers to discuss their
next step, the crazy mom takes this opportunity to jack the baby and try to
hand it over to the angels, displaying the logic that has gotten turn-coats
killed in movies since Charlie Chaplin: “I’ll just take what they want to them
and they’ll let the rest of us live!” I
guess she missed the part about God wanting to eradicate the human race.

Then, they
hear the sound of a horn trumpeting.
Yup, if you’re even vaguely familiar with Christian mythology, or have
seen All Dogs Go to Heaven 2, then you know about Gabriel’s horn. God basically just threw down the gauntlet to
make sure that things went according to plan.

As the door
of the diner is ripped off of its hinges and crazy-mother is being pulled out
into a blinding white light, Michael pop’s a cap in her, she drops the baby,
and CB dives in to catch it. It’s like a
fumble at a football game! CB leaps back to his feet and sprints off. I’m scared just holding a baby because of how fragile they seem, but this NEWBORN
just survived a frakking fall to the floor and a Super Bowl worthy catch
without a scratch! Forget John Conner,
that baby is the Terminator!

While the
others flee, it comes down to a showdown between Gabriel and Michael. Gabriel, at this point, has a huge advantage
over Michael because he still has his wings.
Angels’ wings? CAN DEFLECT
BULLETS! Whenever someone shoots at
Gabriel, he just twirls around like a ballerina and the bullets are knocked
aside like harmless confetti. Besides
the wings, Gabriel has a few other advantages over Michael: he still has God’s favor, and he wields a
heavenly mace. Apparently, engineers go
to Heaven when they die, because this mace can do EVERYTHING: extend its blades, reposition its blades,
spin like a car buffer, shoot out long spikes like a puffer-fish, shave you,
make julienne fries, and be needlessly cocked like a shotgun—a pointless
feature, since there is no shell to expel, but it looks really cool!

(Gabriel’s
Horn, Sword of Fire, and Crown of Thorns sold separately.)

Gabriel
mercilessly kills Michael, despite Michael’s pleas that there was another way. He looks like a pretty bad guy. And that’s why the salty diner owner gets to
have this awesome shining moment. Gas is
leaking out of their stove. The diner
owner holds the lighter down in front of the stove, says, “Sorry, we’re
closed,” lights the lighter (which has “Hope” engraved on the side) and blows
the diner to kingdom come. AWESOME! …except that Angels are…well…Angels.

Meanwhile,
Country Bumpkin, the now Non-Pregnant Lady, the Rebellious Teenager, and the
pseudo-John Connor are driving along in Michael’s stolen police cruiser, hoping
to escape the omnipotent, all powerful Creator of Everything. Gabriel catches up easily, leaps through the
back window, and is launched out through the front window, with Rebellious
Teenager holding onto him, when CB hits the brakes. Then, for some reason, CB swerves the car and
they fly off the road, roll the car THREE times, and land upside down.

Having been
in a car accident, I can attest to the crazy amount of power that those things
pack. You can’t hold onto anything. I lost my cell phone, my glasses, everything
that wasn’t strapped onto me. My wife,
who had been seat-belted in, was still slung out of the vehicle. Somehow, though, Non-Pregnant Lady not only
managed to hold onto the baby, but hold onto the baby without injuring it in
the slightest. She, also, is completely
unharmed, but must have been thrown from the vehicle because she runs up to the
upside down vehicle to let her boyfriend know she’s okay.

Gabriel
finds them and attacks. Country Bumpkin
gets knocked out, and all seems lost for our heroes. Gabriel advances on Non-Pregnant Lady, and
since he killed a frakkin’ angel and she’s only human, there’s pretty much
nothing she can do. Although, she did
survive that car wreck, so maybe she has a chance. It doesn’t matter, either way, because
Country Bumpkin leaps onto Gabriel’s back!
During the struggle, they FALL OFF A CLIFF! Luckily, Gabriel breaks CB’s fall…because
apparently Gabriel forgot he had wings.

Now, from
the way these events play out…it would appear CLEAR that CB is, in fact, the
main character. And when it comes to the final confrontation between Gabriel
and CB, we are eagerly looking forward to how CB will defeat Gabriel, overcome
adversity, and prove his worth in this crazy supernatural battle for the fate
of all humankind. Does that happen?

NO

Instead,
Michael is RESURRECTED FROM THE GRAVE and returns to Earth in a blaze of glory to
kill Gabriel and save CB and his darling girlfriend from a painful death,
resulting in not only one heck of a deux
ex machina, but also one of the biggest ganks in the history of war.

Now, here’s
a huge, gaping plot hole that could swallow the entire universe. Michael defected from God’s team to ensure
the survival of the human race, which he insists is dependent on the baby they
all work their butts off trying to save.
When Gabriel kills Michael, he’s simply doing what God told him to
do. However, I guess God is moved by
Michael’s sacrifice and switches teams in the middle of the conflict. Suddenly, he’s team Michael, and he sends
Michael back to Earth to stop Gabriel from carrying out his orders. Gabriel then opposes God’s Will and dies for
it. Now, if God sent Michael back to
stop Gabriel…that means he clearly doesn’t want the human race to die
anymore. We’re safe right? Right?

(If
you can call this “safe”.)

I guess not.
When the humans try to get some answers from Michael, he just insists that CB
protect the baby, as his TRUE protector, because the survival of the human race
depends on the baby. Except…God called
off the strike. So what’s the human race
in danger of now? Does Michael stick
around to answer these questions? Nope, he
rides off…er…flies off…into the
sunset, but not before reasserting that CB is, in fact, the TRUE protector of
the baby…even though he has failed to do…anything at all effective to prolong
this baby’s life. I don’t think he fires
a single shot during the movie.
LITERALLY! NOT ONE SHOT!

So, with Earth saved and God’s wrath curbed,
the heroes climb down a mountain with the baby that will grow up to save the
human race from…God’s wrath. As if to
drive this point home, the snarky opening lines from the beginning of the movie
are played again.

After
finishing this movie, which was supposed to be an escape from the pressures of
final exams, I felt a rage building inside of me like nothing I’d ever felt
before. I didn’t want to punt a kitten
or punch a baby. I was beyond that. I wanted to take action. I wanted to do something. I wanted to
make sure these movies could never hurt anyone again. So, I ran out, gathered up every copy of the
movie I could find, and set the pile ablaze.
As I stood beneath the towering pyre, a tribal desire to dance to the
rhythm of my heartbeat welling up inside of me, I turned my eyes to the
blackening discs and laughed.

NaNo Progress

About Me

J. M. Dow's owner pressed the B button, preventing him from evolving into his final form. He's had a fascination with dark, weird things since he was a little kid sneaking into the living room to watch late-night reruns of Tales from the Crypt. He lives in Northwest Arkansas with his wife and weenie dog.